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Mesan Genies outside the Onion

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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Oct 08, 2020 11:52 pm

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cthia wrote:I think we should remember that Beowulf is not against genetic modification. They are against flirting with the dangers of genetic modification by crossing a certain threshold in research and tampering with unknowns, which obviously require inhumane methods. The Frankenstein Complex, and the Final Wars.


Is uplifting other species within the code? Say the Stilts of Medusa.

Or dolphins and chimpanzees.
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by tlb   » Fri Oct 09, 2020 9:19 am

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cthia wrote:I think we should remember that Beowulf is not against genetic modification. They are against flirting with the dangers of genetic modification by crossing a certain threshold in research and tampering with unknowns, which obviously require inhumane methods. The Frankenstein Complex, and the Final Wars.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Is uplifting other species within the code? Say the Stilts of Medusa.

Or dolphins and chimpanzees.

It is possible that the Beowulf Code only explicitly applies to human genetic changes; but work on other species does raise similar ethical questions. Can even a treecat give informed consent? When someone says they are uplifting chimpanzees; do they mean that they are making them "better" chimpanzees or that they are making them more like humans? That is to say, do we have any ethical way of knowing what "uplifting" means for another species?
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by cthia   » Fri Oct 09, 2020 12:59 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
cthia wrote:I think we should remember that Beowulf is not against genetic modification. They are against flirting with the dangers of genetic modification by crossing a certain threshold in research and tampering with unknowns, which obviously require inhumane methods. The Frankenstein Complex, and the Final Wars.


Is uplifting other species within the code? Say the Stilts of Medusa.

Or dolphins and chimpanzees.

"Uplifting" is already the wrong attitude. Humanity is already perfect in the eyes of its maker. "Augmenting" may be the correct attitude. If you think any genetic changes to your DNA makes you better than any other human, then that attitude itself makes you lesser than any other human.

Why does the movie Planet of the Apes scream at me? Planet of the Scrags? Now I know why the Cardassians look so weird. They had a Detweiler too.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by tlb   » Fri Oct 09, 2020 1:14 pm

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cthia wrote:"Uplifting" is already the wrong attitude. Humanity is already perfect in the eyes of its maker. "Augmenting" may be the correct attitude. If you think any genetic changes to your DNA makes you better than any other human, then that attitude itself makes you lesser than any other human.

Why does the movie Planet of the Apes scream at me? Planet of the Scrags? Now I know why the Cardassians look so weird. They had a Detweiler too.

Humanity is far from perfect - perfect would be without sin. I think that if I had perfect eyesight, then I would have better vision than most. That could be considered just an augmentation, but a boost in reflexes, coordination and intelligence would be an uplift. None of this makes a modified person better than everyone else, but it does make them better (in a strictly physical sense) than most; until the bulk of humanity also receives those modifications.

So you think Kim Cardassian and her sisters look so weird?
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by cthia   » Fri Oct 09, 2020 1:19 pm

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tlb wrote:That is to say, do we have any ethical way of knowing what "uplifting" means for another species?

No, we do not. Man is not God. We don't even know what "uplifting" means for us. In the HV, an attempt has been made to improve the body. An attempt has been made to improve the brain. No attempt has been made to improve the mind, (but a method has been made to control it.) No attempt has been made to improve the spirit, except on Grayson.

If the inhumanity of the Alignment is the result of uplifting, it is a failure. Why is pure unadulterated genocide always the measure of a master race? If the galaxy at large learns about the MA's habit of culling people, babies, and entire lines, the MA is through. Those are crimes against nature. Against humanity. Hence, proof positive of the dangers of crossing that line the Beowulf Code drew in the sand.

How can a viable plan for humanity be born in the mind of a scorned mad man of medicine?

P.S. tlb, wrong Cardassians. I'm talking Star Trek. Kim's clan is spelled with a (K)ardashian.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by tlb   » Fri Oct 09, 2020 1:44 pm

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cthia wrote:P.S. tlb, wrong Cardassians. I'm talking Star Trek. Kim's clan is spelled with a (K)ardashian.

I known, that was a feeble joke. The reason you did not realize was the lack of a LOL, such as you normally use.
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by cthia   » Fri Oct 09, 2020 2:51 pm

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:P.S. tlb, wrong Cardassians. I'm talking Star Trek. Kim's clan is spelled with a (K)ardashian.

I known, that was a feeble joke. The reason you did not realize was the lack of a LOL, such as you normally use.

Yeah, you gotta include the LOL. Besides, there is a possibility of some truth in the remark. That size luggage on a Caucasian woman does seem, at least, a bit odd.

Hey! Jus sayin'.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Fri Oct 09, 2020 9:15 pm

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:P.S. tlb, wrong Cardassians. I'm talking Star Trek. Kim's clan is spelled with a (K)ardashian.

I known, that was a feeble joke. The reason you did not realize was the lack of a LOL, such as you normally use.

Image
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Fri Oct 09, 2020 9:23 pm

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cthia wrote:
tlb wrote:That is to say, do we have any ethical way of knowing what "uplifting" means for another species?


Well, since I brought it up and I pointed to David Brin's excellent Uplift War trilogies, I get to answer that. Uplifting means bringing semi-sentient or non-sentient species to sentience. Concretely that would mean enlarging their mental capacity and dexterity, among other things.

No, we do not. Man is not God. We don't even know what "uplifting" means for us. In the HV, an attempt has been made to improve the body. An attempt has been made to improve the brain. No attempt has been made to improve the mind, (but a method has been made to control it.) No attempt has been made to improve the spirit, except on Grayson.


Humanity does not need uplifting since humans are already sentient.

Dolphins and chimpanzees aren't sentient. That means they could be uplifted, but that also means they can't give consent.

Treecats and Stilts are sentient. The Stilts, specially, are quite anthropomorph and already had agriculture, villages, before contact with humans. Treecats didn't have agriculture, but they had recorded history.

We could also talk about civilisation uplifting. In the Uplift War, all uplifted species are also uplifted to starfaring capacity, though they remain as clients of their uplifters for 3 eras. Should humanity give technology to the stilts and treecats so they can build industries and eventually their own starships?
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Re: Mesan Genies outside the Onion
Post by tlb   » Fri Oct 09, 2020 10:08 pm

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tlb wrote:That is to say, do we have any ethical way of knowing what "uplifting" means for another species?

cthia wrote:No, we do not. Man is not God. We don't even know what "uplifting" means for us. In the HV, an attempt has been made to improve the body. An attempt has been made to improve the brain. No attempt has been made to improve the mind, (but a method has been made to control it.) No attempt has been made to improve the spirit, except on Grayson.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Well, since I brought it up and I pointed to David Brin's excellent Uplift War trilogies, I get to answer that. Uplifting means bringing semi-sentient or non-sentient species to sentience. Concretely that would mean enlarging their mental capacity and dexterity, among other things.

Humanity does not need uplifting since humans are already sentient.

Dolphins and chimpanzees aren't sentient. That means they could be uplifted, but that also means they can't give consent.

Treecats and Stilts are sentient. The Stilts, specially, are quite anthropomorph and already had agriculture, villages, before contact with humans. Treecats didn't have agriculture, but they had recorded history.

We could also talk about civilisation uplifting. In the Uplift War, all uplifted species are also uplifted to starfaring capacity, though they remain as clients of their uplifters for 3 eras. Should humanity give technology to the stilts and treecats so they can build industries and eventually their own starships?

The concept of sentience is not as easy as you seem to imply. In particular, your statement that "dolphins and chimpanzees aren't sentient" is highly suspect. You seem to be defining sentience by how well they interact with humans. At the bottom I include the conclusion of an online paper that I found by Professor Juan Carlos Marvizon, copyright 2019.

Also I am not sure that uplifting simply means adding sentience; for example if humans could be modified to be empaths (like Honor) or even more to be telepaths, then that would seem to be uplifting.

In conclusion, sentience seems to be a good word to designate our intuition that some animals possess intermediate forms of consciousness between human consciousness and the automatic behavior of the most simple animals. Animals with rudimentary nervous systems formed by less than a million neurons are likely automatons incapable of any form of feeling. They should be given the same moral status as plants. I cannot see any ethical difference between eating a carrot and eating a clam, since they are both not sentient. On the opposite end of the scale, mammals and birds should be considered sentient and capable of experiencing pain. However, my multilayer hypothesis of consciousness is speculative, so deriving a concept of sentience from it is premature at best. Strictly speaking, there is no scientific way to determine if a given animal is able to feel pain (as opposed to having nociception). Moreover, given that pain, distress and suffering are entirely different concepts, we can only say that an animal suffers based on our empathy and our intuition. For the time being, suffering is more a philosophical than a scientific concept. Therefore, sentience has no scientific basis so far and should be used with care when legislating animal welfare.
from What is sentience?
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